


are you prepared to be reborn

by owlinaminor



Series: author's favorites [18]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Deep Conversations, Friendship, M/M, Philosophy, Rooftops, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Café Musain after midnight is desolate. // The sun rises above the roofs of Paris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	are you prepared to be reborn

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the Allen Ginsberg poem Mescaline. And there's a quotation from another Ginsberg poem at the end. (I'm a huge nerd, whoops.)
> 
> This isn't really part of my children of the barricade series, so I'm not including it -- but it could easily go in the series, because I'm relying on all of the same headcanons.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! (I apologize in advance for my overly lyrical prose. Blame it on the fact that I've been reading The Great Gatsby.)

> _"picking out all the stars that we like between finger and thumb,  
>  __you laugh as you pass me the night as if it’s too fragile to hold”  
>  _ – Dark Roman Wine by Snow Patrol

The Café Musain after midnight is desolate.

In the morning, it is a portrait of hope and promise, painted in the colors of brightening sunlight and heartening smiles, the tables and chairs set for a fairytale.  Afternoons stretch on forever, fueled by good food and laughter and the simple camaraderie of being.  After dusk, voices rise and fall, building peaks and valleys of debate, planning, revolution – there might be wine, but the speeches are far more effective in driving wayward souls to greater purpose.  Greater purpose, greater good, greater man – all is possible in Musain.

But after midnight, after the last of the eager would-be rebels are sent reluctantly on their way, the promise drains away like rainwater down the sewers.  Without the bustle of constant activity, Musain is fumbling blindly.  Haphazardly strewn chairs, an empty bar, and the faint light peering in through the window are not the most skillful of guides, and so it is desolate – desolate, lonely, empty.

Except for one man.

Grantaire staggers in, and he’s sitting at the table in the corner, moonlight shining on his hair like the ghost of a halo.  He’s bent over plans, of course (what else is worthy of his attention?) – going over every detail on heavy sheets of paper, filling the margins with note after note in spidery handwriting.  There’s no bottle beside him, which is a shame.  A damn shame, as far as Grantaire’s concerned.

“Apollo!” he calls out.  The shout rings through the stale darkness like a symbol crash, or a gunshot.

Enjolras looks up slowly, wearily – tired of the conversation before it has even begun.  “R.”

Grantaire picks his way around pieces of furniture no doubt intended to send him sprawling, each stumbling step taking him closer to his target.  “Why are you not asleep?” he asks.  “It’s ...”  He glances at his sleeve as though expecting to find a watch there, examines it for a moment, then shrugs and finishes, “quite impressively late.”

“Revolutions don’t plan themselves,” Enjolras replies curtly.  He doesn’t say the _not that you would know_ , but it’s implied.  “Perhaps a more fitting question is: why are _you_ not asleep?”

Grantaire considers that question – frames it in his mind, picks it apart, shifts the pieces into a jumbled mess, and puts it back together like a jigsaw puzzle.  “Not drunk enough,” he finally answers.

“I can understand that.”  It’s not the demeaning answer Grantaire was expecting.  Enjolras nods slowly – and it occurs to Grantaire that he’s never seen the man sleep.

Does Enjolras ever sleep?  Does justice ever rest?  Can a man who has let righteous anger define him for as long as he can remember ever let it go, even for a moment?

Grantaire doesn’t know, but he’s determined to try and find out.

“Let us go then, you and I, up to the roof,” he says.  When Enjolras looks at him, uncertainty plain in his dark eyes, Grantaire adds, “Planning the revolution can wait a few minutes.”

“I beg to differ, as we fight tomorrow,” the fearless leader replies.  And yet, he’s standing – unfolding his lanky body like a piece of parchment kept too long in someone’s pocket – letting his papers fall to the desk, making his way to the rickety, old staircase leading up.  Grantaire follows.

It’s cold on the roof, gusts of wind whipping around Enjolras and Grantaire as though daring each other to push them off.  The men resist with a determination bordering on mad – they sit on the very edge with their legs resting on a ledge half a meter below, pulling their thin coats closer to keep out the chill.

The stars are out – so many of them, infinite pinpricks of light from long long ago and far far away.  Grantaire has always hated the stars – always felt as though they were staring down at him, such disapproval in their blinding eyes.  (But then, how can he blame them?  He’s the most disappointing person he knows, after all.)  Still, instead of looking up at the stars, he looks down at the lights of Paris.  There is a city spread beneath the roof of the Musain, and it might seem no closer than the stars, but it is built by man’s steady hands and man’s ready mind – man is the only deity to whom Grantaire would ever pay homage.

Grantaire looks down.  Enjolras looks up.

“We fight tomorrow,” he says.  The wind carries his voice out to an unknown destination, like smoke rising from a pyre of lit kindling.

“You die tomorrow,” Grantaire corrects.

“No, the people will rise, the National Guard will not be able to contain us, liberty will reign –”

“Perhaps.”  Grantaire shrugs – first one shoulder and then the other rises and falls.  “Perhaps you will persuade a few.  Perhaps there will be a brave man or two who does not fear the sharp taste of a bullet in his ribcage.  Perhaps you will be enough to wreak some havoc.  And yet, at what cost?  How many lives will be lost in the name of a mere idea?”

Enjolras does not answer.  If it was any other time of day, he might have shouted about the glory of revolution, _give me liberty or give me death_ , but it is after midnight, so he simply bows his head and draws his arms around himself.  As though Grantaire will fail to notice that he’s shivering.

Wordlessly – even a fearless leader has nightmares, and a cynic can always sympathize – Grantaire passes Enjolras a bottle.  His hands tighten around it in a ring, knuckles white against the dark glass.  (Such white hands, such pretty hands – smooth from a childhood spent poring over books and a manhood spent making speeches.  Grantaire’s hands are rough and blackened – stained by paintbrushes, bruised by fists, cut by shards of broken glass.)

“Let us talk about the sky,” Enjolras says.

“They sky?” Grantaire asks.

Enjolras sweeps his arm in a wide arc, as though encompassing all of the heavens in the curve of his palm.  “The stars.  The constellations.  Anything.”

There is a wealth of lights above them – tiny lanterns, pinpricks ready to be connected, drawn into sketches of black and gold.  Grantaire does not know the names or histories of any constellations, but he is an artist – artists can make paintings out of anything, and the night sky makes such a magnificent canvas.

And so Grantaire looks up – and begins to speak.

Their words flow in and around them for hours, a river of vowels and consonants only broken by sips from the slowly-emptying bottle.  The wine percolates into their bloodstreams, down into their cores – wine gives strength and courage: strength enough to stay awake and courage enough to forget what will come in the morning.

They don’t talk of revolution.  Revolution is for tomorrow, and tomorrow could be a few hours or an eternity away.  Instead, they speak of the most mundane things – they argue over the best wines, laugh over stories of their friends’ exploits, try to one-up each other with over-exaggerated insults.  Sometimes, Enjolras falls silent, staring at the bottle in his hands, and Grantaire lets his words spill out into the clean night sky, if only to stave off the swiftly-approaching silence.

It’s funny, in a strange way that isn’t funny at all – Grantaire always saw Enjolras as a god (sprung into being wild-eyed and shouting, like Athena from Zeus’ helm, only deigned to grace mere mortals with his thoughts because he pities their lowly souls) but here, in this twilight, he is anything but holy.  He drinks, he laughs, he stumbles over his words.  He has planned the revolution in meticulous detail, and yet nothing is truly sure.  Enjolras cannot control the people and he cannot shield them from the cannons with the power of his voice – he may carry himself like a god but tonight he is nervous, he is shaking, he is human.

Enjolras is human.  Tonight – perhaps every night, but Grantaire never noticed before now – Enjolras is human.  Incredibly human, too human, almost painfully human – he calls every man in Paris his brother and fights for the freedom of every uplifted heart.  It will be so hard to watch him die.

(Grantaire tips the bottle back so that the last drops of the wine falls into his throat.  _He’s going to die, he’s going to die, I want to go with him, if only I was worthy._ )

“Have you resigned yourself to death, then?” Grantaire asks suddenly, the words bursting out unsuspected from the cavern of his throat.

“Do you truly believe we are doomed?” Enjolras counters.  (Always so quick to argue, so quick to defense – but tonight he sounds less angry and more curious, searching for information instead of battering against the wall of Grantaire’s cynicism.)

“Do you not?”

“The people will rise up,” Enjolras insists.

Grantaire focuses on a single star, millions of light years away, and answers.  “Apollo – _Enjolras_ – I have told you this time and time again, but you have not heard.  You never listen.  The people are scared and the army is powerful, and – and even if a following grows around you, some men – good men – will still fall.  Are you prepared for that?”

Enjolras is silent for a long time after that, thinking, wondering – questioning.  Somewhere far away in the city, a light goes out.

“Do you believe in life after death, Grantaire?” he asks at last.

“No,” Grantaire says – with more confidence than Enjolras has heard him say anything.  “At least, I sincerely hope there is none.”

“Why?”  Enjolras’ voice is quiet, barely more than a breath in the night air.

“There is no god, only depravity and sin.  We have such short lives and we waste them ... Do you?  Do you believe in life after death?”  Grantaire turns to face his god (his human?), catching Enjolras in his pointed green gaze.

Belief is the axiom of Enjolras’ soul, so this question is almost too easy.

“I believe that history will repeat itself over and over until society finally learns from its mistakes – until all men are equal, until all fights are for a just cause, until the earth is free.  Perhaps there is some reward for those of us who fight now, and perhaps there is not, but I like to hope that I will be permitted to come back and fight again – that if we lose tomorrow, I will be there when we win.”

Grantaire’s hands tighten around the empty bottle, and he wishes desperately that it was full.  (He was drunk once, perhaps – he was drunk in the evening, but the night and the presence of Enjolras, so close their legs are almost brushing and their thoughts flow together – now he is sober.)

“I think you will,” he says.

They do not speak for some time, after that.  There is no sound save the now-faint wind and there are no lights save the stars so far above.  The two men would make an interesting painting, silhouettes on a roof so inconsequential in the grand scheme of life and death but so crucial in that moment.

Enjolras is watching the stars, and Grantaire is watching Enjolras.

And then, with a soft sigh of relief – the sun rises above the roofs of Paris.  Her light envelops everything – roofs, trees, the rare early riser – in a soft glow, and paints Enjolras’ hair golden.

“Do you truly believe we are doomed?” he asks once again (for the last time.)

Grantaire cannot answer at first – he is struck immobile by the spark in Enjolras’ eyes.  But he forces himself to look away (and down.)  After a few moments staring at the street below, the words come to him.

“We – we, the human race, bearers of infinite light and unspeakable darkness – yes, we are doomed.  But you, Enjolras?  You live and breathe change, you are anger and justice, you are something not quite of this world.  I don’t know about my fellow men, I only know myself – I can only say that I would follow you to the ends of the earth.”

And Enjolras looks at Grantaire, and sees what has always been buried beneath the dust of cynicism and the stain of wine.  Not what anyone would call a god, but so much more than merely a man.

Enjolras grips Grantaire’s hand tightly, and it feels like a promise.

> _“Peter Orlovsky and I walked softly thru Père Lachaise we both knew we would die  
>  and so held temporary hands tenderly in a citylike miniature eternity”  
>  _  – At Apollinaire’s Grave by Allen Ginsberg


End file.
